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Q. Whether are four-wheeled or six-wheeled engines preferable? A. Much controversial ingenuity has been expended upon the question of the relative merits of the four and six-wheeled engines; one party maintaining that four-wheeled engines are most unsafe, and the other that six-wheeled engines are unmechanical, and are more likely to occasion accidents.
It is no doubt the fact, that locomotive engines are now becoming too heavy to be capable of being borne on four wheels at high speeds without injury to the rails; but the objection of damage to the rails applies with at least equal force to most of the six-wheeled engines hitherto constructed, as in those engines the engineer has the power of putting nearly all the weight upon the driving wheels; and if the rail be wet or greasy, there is a great temptation to increase the bite of those wheels by screwing them down more firmly upon the rails.
If the engine be a six-wheeled one, with the driving wheels in the middle, it will be liable to pitch, and oscillate if too much weight be thrown upon the driving wheels; and where such faults are found to exist, the weight upon the drivings wheels should be diminished.
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